Homes not property

The aim of Government housing policy is, as John Hills reminded us, to ensure a decent home for all at “a price within their means”. This focus on financial means has informed the direction of the housing reform debate and helps to explain the otherwise bewildering connection made between social housing and worklessness and between tenancy and social mobility. Providing homes is not, it appears, the aim of Government housing policy, it is only a means to an end. The end of government housing policy is not shelter but wealth creation. In a country of home owners, housing has been conflated with wealth; home has come to be seen as an asset or an investment, as much as, and sometimes more than, a place to live.

This article (PDF document attached) was written as a response to the Chartered Institute of Housing's Housing Reform Debate. It sets out the case for a housing policy that provides social rented housing as a real alternative to the market.